Timeline: Watergate Scandal
JANUARY 1969
37th president inauguration of Richard Nixon.
FEBRUARY 1971
Nixon orders installation of secret tapes. Recording in all of the following:
Oval office
Executive office building
Camp office
and selected phones
June 13, 1971
The New York Times began to publish the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department's secret history of the Vietnam War
1971
Nixon and his staff draft a team of ex-FBI and CIA operatives. They were later referred to as “the Plumbers” to inspect the leaked publication of the Pentagon Papers. On September 9, the "plumbers" break into Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist office. They were unsuccessful in attempting to steal the records to slander, Daniel Ellsberg. He was an analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press.
January 1972
Gordon Liddy, One of the “plumbers,” was transferred to the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). He obtained approval from Attorney General, John Mitchell for a wide-ranging plan of undercover activities against the Democratic Party.
May 28, 1972
For the first time, Liddy’s team breaks into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. There they bugged the telephones of staff members.
​
​
June 17, 1972
At the Democratic National Committee Headquarters, five men were arrested after trying to break in. Among the items found in their possession were bugging devices, thousands of dollars in cash and rolls of film. Days later, the White House denied involvement in the break-in.
​
​
June 17, 1972
Bob Woodward, A young Washington Post crime reporter, was sent to the indictment of the burglars. Carl Bernstein, a Post reporter, volunteered to make phone calls to learn about the break-in.
August 1, 1972
One of the men that were arrested for the Watergate break-in, had a check for $25,000 deposited into his bank account. The $25,000 reserved for Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign. For two years, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein continued to report rumors about the Watergate scandal, trusting on other sources.
​
​
August 30, 1972
John Dean completed an investigation of the Watergate break-in and found no evidence of the White House being involved.